News and opinions tailored to the interests of the community of early stage investors.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

New initiatives to expand and promote entrepreneurship in Western Massachusetts

New initiatives to expand and promote entrepreneurship in Western Massachusetts
have been launched and angels including Paul Silva are leading the charge two hours west of the nearest Red Line station.

“Startup hubs like Silicon
Valley, Boston, and a few others offer vibrant ecosystems that nurture
companies from seed to harvest. But most of us don't live in one of
these hubs!” says Paul Silva, manager of
the River Valley Investors . “Entrepreneurs can migrate to these areas, but
they first need to get enough momentum to make it worthwhile. Most
entrepreneurs don't start out that way - they have lives
and families and responsibilities tied to another geography. So the startups never start.

“In an ideal world, there
would be a vibrant ecosystem to support the formation of startups everywhere.
Then, when the ventures were mature enough, they’d migrate to another area if that made sense.
We can't all be Silicon Valley - nor should we try. But we can all
work to make our own communities as supportive of the entrepreneurial spirit as
possible.

“Over the past 10 years my
community, the Pioneer Valley (AKA Western Massachusetts), has succeeded in
building a great "intro to entrepreneurship" academic structure at
all of the colleges and universities (thanks in large part to the work of the Harold Grinspoon
Charitable Foundation). But when our top students finished the
class... then what? They could certainly use more academic training, but
what they really needed was real-world experience. They
needed mentoring.

“The UMass Amherst
Entrepreneurship Initiative saw this problem and reached out to its friends
(especially Steve Willis of Common Angels)
to create Valley
Venture Mentors, a venture mentoring program inspired by the MIT
Venture Mentor Service. We launched it in February of 2011 and it has
been a runaway success. We have dozens of mentors helping almost a dozen
exciting startups ranging from nonprofits to high tech and everything
in-between.”

How it works: put
the right people in the same room, give them just enough structure, and
facilitate beneficial collisions. The program meets monthly so that
mentors have a chance to build real relationships and see how the ventures
evolve over time. Between the monthly sessions mentors give as much, or
as little, time to each venture as they feel appropriate, with no long-term
commitments or expectations. The program's leadership monitors mentors
and entrepreneurs that choose to deepen their relationship.

These monthly events are designed to generate excitement. In crisp seven minute
presentations the entrepreneurs tell their stories and ask for help in
addressing specific hurdles. During the second part of the session, the
mentors divide up in separate rooms with the entrepreneur of their choice, and
begin to plan, create, and problem-solve. Each meeting includes a mix of former
presenters and debut appearances.

The mentoring program is open to angels, but also to
non-accredited investors that meet the group's criteria. This
openness has brought in an amazing group of folks who have made a real impact
on the entrepreneurs we are helping. The mentoring program is not meant
to be a funnel for investments - the companies are too raw and early... but we
don't complain is one is a good fit for investment. “One team recruited
its CTO from our mentors and will be presenting to my angel group next month,”
says Silva. “This is a team that didn't
have a chance at raising money six months ago - it was just a URL and a concept
on paper.

“The model has proven extremely scalable and cost-effective. It is far too
early to tell, but it is our hope that we have a model that can easily be
replicated in other geographies.”

Entrepreneurs praise this program. “They’ve
helped me make critical decisions and move forward to make this business become
a reality. says Marcie Muehlke, founder
of Joya Bride. “It would have been a lot more difficult and
slower without them.” Muehlke was one of
several VVM startups, mentors, and founders to be featured in BusinessWest on
the impact VVM has had in growing the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. To
read the full article, visit here.

A key component of the
ecosystem is the River Valley Investors angel group, co-founded by Joseph Steig in 2003. Paul Silva joined
in January of 2004 as an associate, becoming
manager of the group in 2005. He became prominently visible in the region about three
years ago, when he took on responsibility for screening deals for our NE ACA regional syndication meetings. Since January of this year, he has served as
principal organizer of these meetings.

Most
recently, Silva has been named associate director of the UMass Amherst Center
for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, a new center dedicated to
helping students create new products, services, and ventures.

With the creation of this new Center, funded by the Isenberg School of Management, “there
are finally resources to achieve some of the dreams many of us have had for
UMass for many years, “ says Silva, himself a graduate with a BS in
computational physics (2000). “The new
position is half time, so I continue to serve as executive director of Valley Venture Mentors and as
Manager of my angel group the River
Valley Investors in the other half. I sadly had to step down from a number
of exciting positions to make room, but I believe it will prove well worth it.”

Of his work in total, Silva says “It is early days, but they are
exciting ones. And I think if we can do it here in Western MA with the
models we are using; it is possible for lots of other regions of the country to
help their entrepreneurs get started.´

What should he tackle
next? Maybe a Red Line stop on the Smith
College Campus adjacent to the new engineering school, thus joining the Pioneer Valley to America's Technology Subway. Watch this space.

About Me

George McQuilken is a founding member of the eCoast Angels Network, a group of private investors backing early-stage companies.

McQuilken was founding CEO of four companies including RSA Security. As Editor of the IBM Systems Journal, he published many of the seminal papers on software management, measurement, security, and quality. He was a project leader at IBM’s Cambridge Scientific Center working on virtual machines and networking. He is a graduate of MIT and member of the IEEE and the ACM.